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Ake, Ake, Ake - A forever language
Nathan Grey (Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Raukawa) grew up knowing he was Māori but not knowing much about what that meant.
His grandparents belonged to a generation where te reo Māori had been suppressed, and he was taught that success meant moving away from his Māoritanga, his identity.
“I didn’t grow up with te reo. I didn’t know anything and I didn’t actually want to know anything,” he said.
“I was always told that to be successful you had to be white.
“So I made that my mission to surround myself with Pākehā... in high school I was white.
“I was called the Dalmatian and I was proud of that. I was like, yo, that means it’s working. Like I am brown, but actually people see me as white.”
His older brother would eventually give him a different way of seeing himself.
After his brother completed a full-immersion te reo Māori course at Te Wānanga Takiura, Grey felt a pull to reclaim his ancestral language.
Grey enrolled at the same wānanga and began a journey that would eventually lead him to teaching te reo Māori himself.
Looking back, he said he had always known he would return to a part of himself that had been missing.
“You sort of know somewhere that you end up returning to the place of which has been missing from you for a while,” he said.
“And because of suppressing the person who I was in high school, that was bound to come up eventually after that. So I like to think it naturally happened.”
But reconnecting with that part of himself was not easy. Grey said learning te reo brought up feelings of mamae he had spent years pushing away.
“Honestly, it was like one of the hardest things.
“Because for 20 years I just put these feelings away and then having to get into a space where you have to face that... You’re like, whoa, what is happening?”
He described the experience as scary but said Takiura taught him to lean on the people around him.
“They’re all doing the same thing. They’re all going through that same feeling as well,” he said.
“And you just talk about it and you just come to understand like, oh my God, like yeah, this isn’t the fault of ours.
“We shouldn’t have to feel ashamed or embarrassed about the feelings, about us not knowing what we should know.”
Now a kaiako of te reo Māori at Selwyn Community Education, Grey said learning te reo Māori has only opened more doors.
“It sort of got me into spaces like this [teaching], got me into spaces working with people, like social work and things like that.
“So very grateful that I’ve been able to actually learn about who I am. Because it’s not like just the language, it’s about you and then whatever follows that as well.”
His ākonga all come from many different backgrounds, including fifth generation Pākehā and tauiwi learners from countries such as Argentina.
Many tell him they want to learn because they want to respect and better understand the country they live in.
Grey said he loves seeing people from different backgrounds come together through te reo Māori.
“I think it’s super important for the reo to be shared in a way that is mindful of what you’re sharing, but also not trying to make it a scary experience for those who are wanting to embark on it, but are a little bit whakamā,” he said.
“They don’t know how to approach it, but they want to approach it in a respectful way.”
He said the more people who learn te reo Māori, the more understanding there can be of Māori culture and people.
“I just think the more people who speak te reo, the better,” he said.
“The better the country, the more understanding we have to the culture and the people.
“Things that are good for Māori are good for everyone.”
Grey hopes his students leave knowing they are capable of learning the language, even if they feel whakamā at first.
“I hope that they take away that they can actually do it, that they have the ability to do so, and then there’s people around them to tautoko them for that,” he said.
“And you can see the keenness that they have for it. So I just hope they hold on to that keenness and carry on, really, with their mahi.”
Nā Layla Bailey-McDowell nō RNZ.
